Herr Bebel's speech, which, as condensed in the Times, is
not immoderate, was preceded and provoked on the previous day by another from Prince Hohenlohe. The German Chancellor declared that the removal of the Minister of the Interior, Herr von Koller, was not dictated by any displeasure with his conduct towards the Social Democrats—against whom he had secured fifty-six convictions in four months— nor any intention to alter the policy of Government, who were aware that they could not at present obtain new laws of repression, but who were determined to apply existing laws with all possible stringency. They believed that to Social Democrats the word Fatherland represented only a barbarous and reactionary idea ; and though no doubt they were acting on their convictions, they must "accept the consequences of their creed,"—a sentence which Diocletian might have uttered about Christians. Among these " con- sequences," it is stated, is a sentence of imprisonment on a workman who, in his own house in a drunken fit, tore down a picture of the Emperor, and was convicted on the evidence of his wife alone, who had private grievances against him. We have no sympathy with Social Democrats, but the new policy of Government only multiplies them. Already, as Prince Hohenlohe confesses, the Emperor has lost his majority in Parliament, and cannot propose laws of public safety which he considers wise.
